Naoto Fukasawa

Naoto Fukasawa is a product designer born in 1956. With his designs devoted to simplicity and sublime beauty, Fukasawa has designed for a wide range of leading brands worldwide in Italy, Germany, America, Switzerland, Spain, China, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, France, Portugal, Sweden and Finland, as well as consulting and working with Japanese major corporations. His designs span a wide variety of fields, from precision electronic equipment to furniture and interior settings.

He has received numerous national and international design awards.

His wall-mounted CD player for MUJI, humidifier for ±0 and the mobile phones INFOBAR and neon for au/KDDI are all part of New York’s Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) permanent collection. In 2007, he was accorded the title of Honorable Royal Designer for Industry (Royal Society of Arts), UK. MUJI’s wall-mounted CD player is also part of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s permanent collection, while his HIROSHIMA armchair for MARUNI is part of Designmuseum Danmark’s permanent collection. And most recently in Spring 2018, Fukasawa received Isamu Noguchi Awards.

Fukasawa is one of the directors of 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT. He also sits on the design advisory board of MUJI, and is the art director of MARUNI. In 2017, he became a member of the judging committee for the LOEWE Craft Prize. He is a professor in the Integrated Design department at Tama Art University. In 2006, he established “Super Normal” with Jasper Morrison. He has been acted as the 5th curator of The Japan Folk Crafts Museum since 2012.

Fukasawa has co-authored “The Outline – The Unseen Outline of Things” (Hachette Fujingaho) with photographer Tamotsu Fujii and released “NAOTO FUKASAWA” (Phaidon Press). In Spring 2018, he released his second book with Phaidon press, “Naoto Fukasawa Embodiment”.

Cork Bench

This bench provides a sense of gentleness through its rounded body, while transmitting a sense of friendliness and a sense of affection at the same time. One of the interesting aspects of this bench is our body’s contact with the material. Since it is a bench, we sit and put our hands on it or we can lie on it. Cork is known for its natural temperature-regulating properties and it is known to maintain a similar temperature to our own bodies, thus providing a unique connection between the user and the product. As a result, this bench offers a very comfortable experience.

Type Bench

Date 2013

Dimensions 1450 x 650 x 450 mm

Weight 32 kg

Material Medium density expanded cork

Edition Limited (8+3)

Made in Portugal with Portuguese cork.
This piece was developed for the Metamorphosis project, for Corticeira Amorim.
100% recyclable.